Steering a motorized wooden boat down the Kholpetua River, Mondal looked out at the gray, sloping embankments. A handful are made of brick, but most, like the one in Gabura, are just mud and have never been fortified with anything stronger. Malnourished goats scampered across the narrow river wall, and old men with long beards walked barefoot, leaning on wooden canes.
Mondal pointed out uprooted mangrove trees along the way. The mangroves serve as a natural storm barrier and bore the brunt of Cyclone Sidr in 1997. More than 3,000 people died in that cyclone, but scientists credit the Sundarbans forest mangroves with protecting Bangladesh from the very worst of Sidr's wrath. Now river erosion and creeping salinity are slowly killing the trees.
"People are living outside the dam because of river erosion," Mondal said. "They have lost a lot of things. Several times, their houses."
With more flooding, good jobs dry up
He pointed to the old men and teenage girls – and even children as young as 7 – casting nets in the water for shrimp fry. It's a job locals call "working the net." They earn the equivalent of about 50 cents a day, and it's about the only type of job left here. Mondal grew up in the area just outside the Sundarbans and said life now is completely different from the one he remembers.
"People used to play outside. You'd see kids playing. Now everyone is working. Everybody is worried about how to eat," he said. "A lot of people are leaving here now. They are going away, even to India."
Standing atop the mud embankment in Gabura, which a month after the tidal flood, men were still working to restore, Masudualam said he believes the flights are temporary. "Hopefully, if we can strengthen this area, people will return," he said.
Amjat Ali, 70, of nearby Chakbara, harbors no such hopes.
His son, a farmer who fished to supplement his income, moved last year to the district seat of Satkhira. Now the son drives a ricksha, and Ali said he does not expect the boy to ever move back home.
"If he comes back, what is he going to eat here?" Ali said. "The land is getting spoiled. There's no way to earn anything over here and nothing to eat here."
Abuisa, 32, who goes only by his first name, is the last of his seven brothers still living in Chakbara. Their father once owned land but, he said, "that's fallen into the river." The sons fished and foraged honey in the Sundarbans forest.
'How will we move from here? We don't have anything'
In the past three years, four of his brothers moved to the nearby city of Jessore on the Bhairab River. After the most recent flood, the fifth brother went to Kuhlna, a port city, to find work in the rice mills. A tiger mauled the sixth to death. Now Abuisa is making his own plans to leave.
"A third of everybody, almost, is thinking about leaving," he estimated. "When people leave, they usually don't come back."
The hardest hit, experts agree, are the families who are unable even to move. Social scientists say they are the ones most vulnerable to traffickers and others who prey upon the poorest of the poor. They are left to make do as best they can.
Shaidullah said he is in that category. Covered in mud from working all day to rebuild Gabura's embankment, he described swimming frantically to his boat the night of the flood. There is no electricity in Gabura, and Shaidullah rowed in the black night across the river that moments earlier had been a rice paddy.
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4 Comments
Add CommentThe rich countries may be planning to fight agaist climate change, but these climate refugees need urgent United Nations attention now. It is the fault of the CO2 emitteurs if climate is changing. We must take care of those that are affected by our negligence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHi from Bangladesh. We want to start a Save the River within 3 months from Bangladesh. We are planning to spread it in our SAARC region. Please let us know can you help us in any matter! Or can we work together to save the river program?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBest regards,
Mahmudul Karim Rubel
CEO
Design Bangladesh
dbemailbox@yahoo.com
www.DesignBangladesh.com
increasing salinity in bd rivers is caused by dams up river in india, not by rising sea levels. cyclones and floods are and have always been regular features of the weather pattern in bd. they are not caused by climate change. in any case the theory that climate change has caused increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather has been discredited and these claims have now been withdrawn by the ipcc. it is disgraceful to see scientific american abandon science so easily and stoop so low to sell the climate change agenda. i used to look up to this magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNice article of lisa, its show the real picture of Bangladesh, I am from Bangladesh, so thank you vry much. How can I contact with her on behalf of a science organization of my Country? Could you please infor me?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTheodore Joel Karmaker
COSMIC CULTURE
www.cosmicculture.org
info@cosmicculture.org
+88-019-14434380